When Thomson negotiated its $17bn deal for Reuters, Thomson chairman David Thomson stayed on the sidelines through 18 months of talks, speaking to Reuters top management only on the day plans for the deal were announced in 2007.

For the scion of Canada's wealthiest family, the hands-off approach, described by people close to the merger, was par for the course. The family's formula over the past two generations at the media empire founded by David Thomson's grandfather was "surround yourself with business people…and then let management manage," says Ron Barbaro, a former director.

Four years after it was completed, the tie-up with Reuters has disappointed investors, and Thomson, chairman of the combined company, is playing a more assertive role. Late last year, he presided over a wide-ranging management shake-up. And last week, he replaced the head of the family's holding company, which owns 55% of Thomson Reuters.

That executive, Geoff Beattie, remains vice chairman at Thomson Reuters, where he will focus on improving its performance, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of these people said the move comes after months of tension between Thomson and Beattie over the stock-market performance of Thomson Reuters, a merger Beattie had championed.

The move also signals a change in the way the family that controls one of the world's biggest media complexes manages its far-flung businesses.

For half a century, the Thomsons were an acquisitive family, buying up assets in an array of sectors and just as often selling them, frequently at the top of the market. Today, that family deal-making is set to largely end, several people familiar with the matter say, as the Toronto-based family company, Woodbridge, is retooled to become a more traditional holding company with a focus on income rather than new acquisitions. That was among the motivations for moving Beattie, who is well-known as a deal-maker, these people said.

Family members and officials at Woodbridge, which holds a number of investments besides its Thomson Reuters stake, also have discussed the possibility of restructuring some of these other holdings, according to people familiar with the matter. This could involve, over time, either distributing shares in some of those other assets to family members or selling them and passing the proceeds on to the members, one of the people said. A spokesman representing Woodbridge, Thomson and Thomson Reuters declined to comment on this and most other aspects of this article.

Last month, Woodbridge sold a parcel of downtown Toronto land, according to RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, which said it and two other firms were the buyers. A RioCan executive said Woodbridge had been developing an adjacent plot but now is in talks to sell this as well.

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At Thomson Reuters, the family's representation will increase, because the new president and CEO of Woodbridge, David Binet, will become a director along with Beattie.

"We anticipate a continued collaboration with Geoff [Beattie] at Thomson Reuters, which is our largest investment and of fundamental importance to us," David Thomson said last week in announcing the move. He said the shuffle comes as the family holding company "enters an important new era."

David Thomson declined several interview requests made in recent months. Through a Thomson Reuters spokesman, he declined a request for further comment about the Woodbridge move. In brief emailed responses to questions earlier this year, David Thomson said he was content with the Thomson Reuters tie-up.

The Thomson Empire

Starting in the 1930s, the Thomson family of Canada built a business that now controls 55% of Thomson Reuters.

The deal was designed to create a financial news and information powerhouse by combining two storied media groups. It would link Thomson's dominance in sectors such as investment banking and wealth management with Reuters's international footprint and strength in areas like foreign-exchange trading, equity sales and news. The combination hasn't yet delivered all of the benefits envisioned.

One reason was that the deal closed in 2008 just months before the global financial and economic crisis sapped sales at one of combined firm's biggest divisions, its financial-products unit, which sells news, data and other tools to traders and other financial players. Meanwhile, it was facing increased pressure from competitors such as Bloomberg.

Amid an uneven global recovery, the Thomson Reuters financial-products unit continues to perform fitfully, with sales slipping 2% in the first nine months of this year. Operating profit fell 18% in the period, based on the company's most recent earnings release.

Company-wide, Thomson Reuters's revenue slid 3% to $9.88bn in the first nine months of this year, weakened by worse-than-expected downsizing at financial institutions across Europe. Thomson Reuters's stock is down around 20% since the acquisition was completed, versus a rise of about 4% for the S&P 500.

The Thomson family's fortune has felt the effect. Its stake in Thomson Reuters is now worth about $12.6bn, down from around $16bn. Ranked by Forbes in 2007 as the world's 10th-richest family, with assets valued at $22bn, the Thomsons as of last March were Number 35 on the list with estimated assets of $17.5bn.

Although the family's controlling stake insulates Thomson Reuters from most outside investor pressure, the stock has frustrated some shareholders, including Canadians who have been longtime investors. Directors "have clearly dropped the ball, and shareholders have paid for it," said Ian Hardacre, a fund manager at Invesco Canada, an arm of fund-management giant Invesco that is among the largest investors in Thomson Reuters.

In his emailed replies earlier this year, David Thomson said that "The acquisition closed in 2008 and the global economy has been difficult since then. One of our key marketplaces is financial services and that has been particularly affected. The acquisition and integration was very complex and was well executed by management."

The family empire traces to 1931, when David Thomson's grandfather Roy, the son of a barber, launched it with the purchase of a Canadian radio station. Thomson holdings at various times included hairdressing salons, an airline, North Sea oil assets and a portfolio of newspapers stretching from Marion, Ohio, to Britain, where the company once owned the Times of London.

The publicity-shy family has cast a long shadow, particularly in Canada, not only because of its size, wealth and philanthropy but also because of an astute business record. Under Roy Thomson's son Ken, it sold some of its largest holdings, including print newspapers, ahead of downturns in their sectors.

Though its Thomson Reuters stake is by far the family's biggest holding, contributing $600m in dividends in 2011, it also owns such assets as a $3bn investment in funds managed by private-equity firm General Atlantic, 13.2% of US hotels group Strategic Hotels & Resorts and 85% of Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.

David Thomson shares ownership of Woodbridge with his brother, Peter, a prizewinning rally driver, their sister, Taylor, and four cousins. Peter is a Thomson Reuters board member, but Taylor has no formal role at Thomson Reuters. The extended family has fanned out across Canada, with different branches pursuing different businesses. That dispersal was a motivation for changing Woodbridge, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some family members began to complain about the performance of Thomson Reuters, according to people familiar with the matter. David Thomson, asked whether some were dissatisfied, said in his emailed replies: "We have confidence in the company and its long-term potential. All the family is very supportive of Thomson Reuters."

In a sign of how the family has tried to adapt to its growing size, members in May discussed hiring someone to write a family newsletter that would inform the clan of their investments' performance, according to a person familiar with the plan. It isn't clear whether the newsletter got off the ground.

Beattie, while at the helm of the family holding company, was the point man in a tight circle of advisers that acted as a conduit between the generally private family members, their investments and the bankers and lawyers who pitched new deals. As a proponent of the Reuters deal, he took an active role in negotiations with Reuters executives.

Shortly after the deal's completion, some Thomson executives began to resent what they saw as a "reverse takeover," say people familiar with the matter. Reuters's chief at the time, Tom Glocer, became chief executive of the combined company. He tapped a Reuters lieutenant to head the division that included financial information.

There were cultural mismatches. At one point, professional-division head James Smith, from the Thomson side, delivered a no-frills, fact-laden presentation on the latest iteration of a desktop product for legal professionals. Among Reuters executives accustomed to flashier presentations, "there was a lot of snickering" about how dry it was, said one person present. Through a Thomson Reuters spokesman, Smith declined to comment.

An executive from the Reuters side presented on "Project Utah," a desktop product for traders that had yet to launch but for which a rollout was already envisaged that would include outdoor displays, live events and sponsorship of a "South Pole Expedition." Project Utah morphed into Eikon, a kind of all-in-one desktop system aimed at competing with Bloomberg's news, data and analysis terminals.

Making Thomson's and Reuters's databases and delivery networks "talk to each other" proved an "incredibly complex" undertaking, said Douglas Taylor, a former Thomson executive and founder of Burton-Taylor Consulting. Launched in the fall of 2010, Eikon had a slow start, amassing just 8,000 customers in its first year. The number has since jumped to 25,600.

Bloomberg last year overtook Thomson Reuters in share of the market for financial data, and Bloomberg increasingly is competing on other fronts. It rolled out Bloomberg Law, a research tool for lawyers that puts it in direct competition with Thomson Reuters's dominant Westlaw legal service.

David Thomson initially gave Thomson Reuters executives free rein, in the family's customary hands-off style. A collector of photographs, he sometimes called editors at Reuters's photographic-agency business to talk about pictures, yet rarely reached out to top executives, these people said.

Through the struggles to perfect the Eikon product, he had little contact with the Glocer, other than at board meetings, people familiar with the matter said. Big investors also say David Thomson rarely reaches out to them. But at the annual meeting in May, he lingered to chat with small investors over sandwiches long after other directors had left.

Thomson is regarded by friends and in the close-knit Toronto business community as private almost to the point of reclusive, and a bit eccentric. He sometimes arrives at business meetings in jogging gear or cargo pants, or wears sneakers with his suit. He spends large sums on art, but, like his father, Ken, shows frugality elsewhere. He will get years' worth of wear from shoes and suits, said one person.

When David Thomson was still young, his grandfather, Roy, lined him up to someday take over the family business, stating this responsibility in the patriarch's autobiography. Some who know David Thomson describe him as a reluctant heir. He "felt the weight, or the responsibility, that he would step into those shoes," said Jeff Laidlaw, who knew him through school and his early 20s.

As Thomson Reuters struggled to reap the full promise of its merger, however, David Thomson began to pressure Beattie at the family holding company for a turnaround, according people familiar with the situation. Beattie then ratcheted up pressure on Glocer, the chief executive at the time, according to these people.

In July 2011, Glocer forced out the head of the financial-information unit. Soon, Glocer himself stepped down, succeeded by Thomson veteran Smith, the executive whose presentation at an early meeting had struck some from the Reuters side as colorless.

Despite Thomson's evident preference for taking the back seat in management, he has a huge desire to do well at the business started by a grandfather of whom he often talks admiringly, according to friends. "He's deeply competitive," said Wesley Wark, a friend who first met Thomson at Cambridge University in 1975. "He doesn't relish if the company is not doing well, he doesn't relish having his performance outperformed."

—Keach Hagey contributed to this article.

Write to Alistair MacDonald at alistair.macdonald@wsj.com, Anupreeta Das at anupreeta.das@wsj.com and Russell Adams at russell.adams@wsj.com

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